MER Episode 14 – Crackpots of The Old Republic

With Con season right around the corner, the news from Bioware has just barely been trickling out. But that’s okay! With a month break from the show, we’ve had plenty of news pile up to talk about including a new Holonet entry, a Dev Blog on the Sith Inquisitor, and the newly announced playable planet, Taris! It’s not all news either, as we launch into an epic speculation rabbit hole about the nature of the Spring 2011 release announcement. You won’t want to miss it!

Also, we want to extend a huge thanks to JThompson6577, DEDMON5811 (who left a seriously hilarious review and has been active in the forums as well), and Peterisjustok for taking the time to leave us reviews on iTunes!

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News from the Galactic Republic
Holorecord Entry: Onslaught of the Sith Empire

Developer Blog: Composing the Sith Inquisitor
-For those of you who missed the Trooper dev blog (like us) you can find it here

Taris Added as Newest Playable Planet
-Background info from Wookiepedia
-Aurebesh translation from Holonet Project
-Originally speculated as a planet back in July by forum poster MFavila
-Lore Update from Darth Hater

Stories from the Outer Rim
What the 2011 Release Date Means for the Community and EA
-Original release target post is now over 200 pages
-Recent entitlement post with an official response from ErickAdams
-Zach’s crackpot idea of a large media company purchasing EA in the next year
-The negative effect the entitled minority can have on the greater community (The Ghostcrawler Incident)

Fansites from around the web
-Holonet Project: Dedicated to translating all of the Aurebesh found on the Holonet pages. http://www.holonetproject.net/
-Shock N Awesome: Sith Inquisitor class blog. http://shocknawesome.com/

Pre-Episode Poll
Are You Going to PAX East?
-Nope. (87%, 47 Votes)
-Yes! I’ll see you guys there. (13%, 7 Votes)

MER Episode 13 – Dispensing Justice

Hear that sound? That’s the gentle sigh of relief from a community that finally knows when to expect The Old Republic to be released. A release date, we might add, that is going to mean more features, more content, and ample time to deal with bugs PRIOR to launch. Along with the new release target, we get caught up on the rest of SWTOR news with the Imperial Agent developer blog, the new Sith planet, Dromund Kaas, and more. We also respond to one of our best polls yet (thanks to you listeners!) and yield a few questions on everything from group roles to cross-faction conversation.

Thanks again to everyone who sent us a question, participated in the poll, or has left us reviews on iTunes and other places around the web…we truly appreciate it!!

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News from the Galactic Republic
Release Rumor Round 3: Bioware confirms Spring 2011 as the “release target”
-Confirmation on the official forums
-Original rumor from EA meeting on Darth Hater

Developer Blog – Top Secret Dossier on the Imperial Agent

Dromund Kaas added to the Holonet

Fan Friday Update features a new Developer Corner section

Pre-Episode Poll
How many hours a week do you game?
-Hardcore! (25+ hours) (38%)
-Moderate (15-25 hours) (38%)
-Casual (5-15 hours) (19%)
-Very Casual (0-5 hours) (5%)

Listener Questions
Do you think typical mmo players like having well defined group roles for their class, or do you think they will adapt well to being able to change their combat role through changing traits/talents or by summoning a companion?
-Reliant

With all the stun and sleep moves I just dont think the pvp is going to be very action packed more like everyone stun everyone. How do you guys think the pvp will work? Also do you think that all the classes should have a stun ability?
-Mitchal Whiting

- Audio Question from Slartibartfast (Axel)

MER Episode 13 Pre-Poll: Are You Hardcore?

Are you hardcore? We know that each of you comes from a different gaming background, with a number of different experiences. Are you the casual player who logs a few hours a week, or a dedicated raider putting in five hours a night? Vote in the poll and let us know in the comments!

Episode 13 will come out early next week. We’ll be discsussing the newly announced “target release” of SWTOR, the Imperial Agent developer blog, Dromund Kaas, and more!

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MER Episode 08 – The Black Sun Syndicate

Bioware dropped the making of Coruscant and the new planet, Balmorra, on us, and Zach points out a mention of the Black Sun Syndicate! Christian Sorrell joins us from FourStoryGamer.com to discuss the news and the possibility of creature handlers in SWTOR, as well as some listener questions about Bioware points, mounts, and more. We top off the episode with a special segment about the Star Wars franchise. Check it out and let us know what you think!

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News from the Galactic Republic
-The Making of Coruscant
-Balmorra revealed as the newest playable planet location in SWTOR

Stories from the Outer Rim
-Is Creature Handler going to be revealed as a playable class?

Listener Questions
I Think the points system that you guys was talking about in episode 7 could be something like World Of Warcraft’s DKP system. Where you gain points for raiding and then when you gain enough of these points you could use these points to gain epics from drops in the raid. Join the dark side we have cookies.
-Darth Sciros

One of the things I’ve been most concerned about is this: What incentive will there be for characters to group together for quests? I mean socialization and companionship are one thing, but what about furthering your story line, and what do you do when all your friends and guildmates are busy on another planet and don’t have time to come do your “Flashpoint?” And what if the people who DO have time turn out to be jerks? I posted this a while ago, on the TOR forums, and I’m interested to hear what you think.
http://www.swtor.com/community/showthread.php?t=25187 Thanks!
-Billy Uno

MER Episode 07 – The NOT Beta

Game Testing…Holy crap! I don’t think any of us were expecting this. And of course, we couldn’t wait another week to talk about it! We also touch on the new Sith Developer Blog, and answer a listener question about character and story customization.

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News from the Galactic Republic
-SWTOR Game Testing: What it is and isn’t, and what it means for you as a fan

-Game Testing announcement brings the site down for hours

-Sith Developer Blog

Stories from the Outer Rim
-Is Bioware using “points” for in-game currency?

Listener Questions
Hey Zach and Brooks first I just wanted to say great job with the podcast you guys are doing a great job. My question is that the developers are putting a lot of emphasis on story and that every class will have a unique story. I was wondering on how the player stories are going to be more personal like so if me and my buddy are both bounty hunters are we going to do the same quests and I know that we can choose different paths but if we chose the same class would we have different experiences than each other. For example if im a Kel Dor and my friend is a human if we go to the Kel Dor homeworld do you think that I may have a specific quest just for me to make my character unique? I know its a long question I was just wondering what your thoughts were and just keep up the good work.
-Mesirav Darkcrest

Voicing Star Wars The Old Republic

Last week Developer Blog #10 popped up on the official site, going into great detail about the process for the extremely daunting task of recording voice over for The Old Republic. It’s been known for some time that all NPCs and quest-related information will be listened to and not read. In fact, this is one of the core elements of Bioware Austin’s new “story” pillar of MMORPGs. While the concept alone is enough to excite the legions of Knights of Old Republic fans, there is a scale and dedication to their craft present that I’m not sure everyone fully understands.

Let’s look at some of the facts: The Old Republic is the size of at least 10 KOTORs recorded back to back and the voice-over has been recorded in 5 different cities: Los Angeles , London, New York, San Francisco, and Toronto, by hundreds of different actors. First and foremost, if anyone has taken a close look at the audio files for KOTOR, the dialog alone accounts for about 550MB of space. Multiplying that by 10, we get an astonishing 5.5GB of data just for voice. Factoring in music and environmental sounds, and without an elaborate compression scheme, it’s likely that all audio related content for The Old Republic could take upwards of 7-8GB of storage on your machine.

View of Skywalker Sound’s Akira Kurosawa dubbing stage with the Neve DFC console.

What really speaks to Bioware and LucasArt’s dedication to this game is the task of working with so many voice actors at so many locations. The act of recording that much audio alone is astonishing, but when the whole process is considered, it’s no surprise that the team went to Skywalker Sound, one of the heaviest hitters in movie and video game industry. Before even a single line is recorded, scripts are laid out, voice directors are met with, actors have practice groups, and engineers consider all the editing and processing that will need to be done. Once the first track is laid, then comes the grueling task of assuring consistency in volume, pitch, and even pronunciation, as dynamic storylines require each individual line to be played on the fly based on a player’s choices.

As a gamer and an audio engineer, I couldn’t be more excited about what this means for both The Old Republic and the gaming industry in general. With this release, the teams at Bioware and LucasArts will set the bar for video game audio, and a very high one at that.

How do you feel about all quest and NPC-related content being spoken and not read?